Chapter 1
“My children only sleep soundly in their mother’s arms.”
I said it while kneeling in the hay beside Emma and my three daughters.
Victor’s face changed instantly.
That was why I kept looking at him instead of the note.
Sophie slept against Emma’s shoulder. Lily was tucked beneath the soaked cardigan at her side. Grace still had three tiny fingers wrapped around the broken chain from Claire’s ruby pendant.
Emma looked exhausted enough to collapse.
But when I reached for Grace, she did not hand her over immediately.
“Wait.”
Victor laughed from the ruined feed baskets.
“You hear that? She’s still trying to control them.”
I ignored him.
Emma shifted Grace slightly, supporting the back of her head exactly the way Claire used to.
Then she hummed.
Three notes.
Pause.
Three more.
My chest went cold.
Claire had made that rhythm up when Sophie refused to sleep during her first week home.
Nobody outside our bedroom knew it.
I looked at Emma.
“Who taught you that?”
Her eyes met mine.
“Claire.”
Everything inside the barn stopped.
Victor pushed himself upright.
“She’s lying.”
Emma flinched.
I did not.
“When?”
Her voice dropped.
“Eleven days ago.”
Claire had been missing for four months.
Victor had told me there was no trail left.
Marco had personally supervised every ranch search.
I looked toward both brothers.
Then back at Emma.
“Where is my wife?”
Emma’s arms tightened around the babies.
“I don’t know where she is now.”
My jaw clenched.
“That wasn’t my question.”
“She made me promise I wouldn’t tell anyone until I knew your daughters were safe.”
Victor spoke again.
“Daniel, she’s manipulating you.”
I unfolded Claire’s tiny note.
DON’T TRUST VICTOR.
Then I looked at the man who had stood beside me through my wife’s disappearance, my daughters’ birth, and four months of searching.
May you like
For the first time, I understood why Claire had not simply written where she was.
She did not know which men around me would read the message first.
